Far West Once

Aloud, I said, with a slight stir of heart,
"The last time" -and thought, years thence, to a time
When only in memory I might
Repeat this last tramp up the shadowy gorge
In the mountains, cabinward, the fall
Coming on, the aspen leaf gold, sun low
At the western end of the gun-barrel passage
Waiting, waiting the trigger-touch
And the blast of darkness - the target me.

I said, "I'll try to remember as much
As a man caught in Time cannot forget,"
For I carried a headful of summer, and knew
That I'd never again, in the gloaming, walk
Up that trail, now lulled by the stone-song of waters;
Nor again on path pebbles, noon-plain, see
The old rattler's fat belly twist and distend
As it coiled, and the rattles up from dust rise
To vibrate mica-bright, in the sun's beam;
Nor again, from below, on the cliff's over-thrust,
Catch a glimpse of the night-crouching cougar's eyes
That, in my flashlight's strong beam, had burned
Coal-bright as they swung,
Detached, contemptuous, and slow,
Into the pine woods' mounting mass
Of darkness that, eventually,
Ahead, would blot out, star by star,
The slot of the sky-slice that now I
Moved under, and on to dinner and bed.

And to sleep - and even in sleep to feel
The nag and pretensions of day dissolve
And flow away in that musical murmur
Of waters; then to wake in dark with some strange
Heart-hope, undefinable, verging to tears
Of happiness and the soul's calm.

How long ago! But in years since,
On other trails, in the shadow of
What other cliffs, in lands with names
Crank on the tongue, I have felt my boots
Crush gravel, or press the soundlessness
Of detritus of pine or fir, and heard
Movement of water, far, how far -

Or waking under nameless stars,
Have heard such redemptive music, from
Distance to distance threading starlight,
Able yet, as long ago,
Despite scum of wastage and scab of years,
To touch again the heart, as though at a dawn
Of dew-bright Edenic promise, with,
Far off, far off, in verdurous shade, first birdsong.

-Robert Penn Warren